September / Updike Reading: "Rabbit, Run"

[Scheherazade]

http://www.notablebiographies.com/images/uewb_10_img0695.jpg

In September, we are reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike:
Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

Synopsis:
It's 1959 and Harry Rabbit' Angstrom, one time high school sports superstar, is going nowhere. At twenty-six, he is trapped in a second-rate existence - stuck with a fragile, alcoholic wife, a house full of overflowing ashtrays and discarded glasses, a young son and a futile job. With no way to fix things, he resolves to flee from his family and his home in Pennsylvania, beginning a thousand-mile journey that he hopes will free him from his mediocre life. Because, as he knows only too well, after you've been first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate'. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rabbit-Run-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141187832/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/202-1037526-7674239?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188860191&sr=8-2



Book Club Procedures (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=57103#post57103)

[Nightshade]

Started it about pg 19. so far Im thinking its reminding me of Anne Tylers Saint MAybe that I had to read for an RL book club the year before last. This comparision may annoy me.

[applepie]

I just got my copy today so hopefully I'll be starting in the next day or so. I'm also reading The Awakening again, so I may try to finish that first.

[Virgil]

I started last night, but i was so tired I only read a few pages.

[Baron]

I'm new at this. The Amazon summary sounds interesting. I have been reading mind candy all summer, so guess I should check out Rabbit, Run.
Baron

[Virgil]

I'm about 20 pages in. Does anyone think that Updike over describes? It seems excessive in parts. But I did like the description of Rabbit playing basketball. Here's a paragraph which I particularly liked:


There is no response, just puzzled silly looks swapped. Rabbit takes off his coat, folds it nicely, and rests it on a clean ashcan lid. Behind him the dungarees begin to scuffle again. He goes into the scrimmaging thick of them for the ball, flips it from two weak grubby-knuckles child's hands, has it in his own. That old stretched leather feeling makes his whole body go taut, gives his arms wings. It feels like he's reaching down through the years to touch this tautness. His arms lift of their own and the rubber ball floats toward the basket from the top of his head. It feels so right he blinks when the ball drops short, and for a second wonders if it went through the hoop without rifling the net. He asks, "Hey whose side am I on?"

Excuse any typos. I hand typed it. Despite saying that the ball is leather at one point and then calling it a rubber ball (is that a mistake?), this really captures a moment of experience very well. I really liked that.

[papayahed]

Doh! I meant to stop at the library after work.

[arabian dream]

I love to join your book club and read John Updike novel Rabbit, Run but unfortunately I can't find his novel in bookstore in my country Qatar.
I tried to order it from amazon.com but unfortunately it is need one week more in fact I cant waited one week to begin read Updike novel because in 13 September I have to fast from food water from sunrise until sunset this is my religious command of Islam.

I hope you enjoy reading and I will try to join your book club next month.

[Virgil]

Who's reading? Anyone out there reading Rabbit, Run? I'm enjoying it so far. Other than at times excessive description, I think the writting is quite good.

[jlb4tlb]

I am about 100 pages into it, not really sure how I feel about it yet. The writing is quite good. Does anybody but me sense a certain amount of homophobia in it?

[Virgil]

I am about 100 pages into it, not really sure how I feel about it yet. The writing is quite good. Does anybody but me sense a certain amount of homophobia in it?

Don't know how old you are Jib, but considering homosexuality a perversion was the prevailing attitude of the time.

[jlb4tlb]

Don't know how old you are Jib, but considering homosexuality a perversion was the prevailing attitude of the time.

Quite true Virgil, The book has been in print for 47 years now. But I am older, turning 52 this week.

[Virgil]

Quite true Virgil, The book has been in print for 47 years now. But I am older, turning 52 this week.

:lol: I thought you were a teenager, Jlb. Sorry. You're older than me. Hey, I haven't welcomed you to lit net. Hope you enjoy it here. :)

[jlb4tlb]

:lol: I thought you were a teenager, Jlb. Sorry. You're older than me. Hey, I haven't welcomed you to lit net. Hope you enjoy it here. :)

Not a problem, not many of us older folks in this forum.;) Thank You for the welcome.

Jeff

[applepie]

Who's reading? Anyone out there reading Rabbit, Run? I'm enjoying it so far. Other than at times excessive description, I think the writting is quite good.

I'm going to start soon, honest. I'm finishing The Awakening, and then I'll be on to reading this one. I have the book and all. I just need to sit and read a little. Hopefully I'll start this week.

[jlb4tlb]

Finished the book this evening and voted it average. Harry was just to much of a jack *** for me to care about.

Jeff

[Virgil]

I find the sections with Rabbit to be intensely written. The sections without him rather lacking. Overall I'm enjoying it. I'm 2/3 done and will post some substantive thoughts shortly.

[applepie]

I'm still working on reading this. My attention has been pretty divided, so hopefully I'll post some concise thoughts on the book. So far, I'm trying to reconcile that I'm enjoying the way the story is written, but I'm in the air on whether I like the characters or not.

[Virgil]

Meg, O'm not sure any of the characters are meant to be likable.

[applepie]

Fair enough:lol: I'm not too sure they're written to be likable either... worthy of pity, maybe, but not likable. I like books, once in a while, that have characters I can't stand. I love The Awakening, but I just wanted to slap Edna through the whole book, so I'm thinking this may be one of those.

[Virgil]

Yeah, no doubt, Rabbit could use a good slap. :lol:

[applepie]

That's what I'm saying. I'm a little weirded out by the coach too... I'm not that far in, but is he homosexual??? I think it was the whole watching Rabbit dress and undress that felt a little creepy. By the way, I like your new avatar. Are you trying something new on for size? It seems like you had the wolf even when I joined... Well that was the same time as you, but I had quite a hiatus.

[Virgil]

That's what I'm saying. I'm a little weirded out by the coach too... I'm not that far in, but is he homosexual??? I think it was the whole watching Rabbit dress and undress that felt a little creepy. By the way, I like your new avatar. Are you trying something new on for size? It seems like you had the wolf even when I joined... Well that was the same time as you, but I had quite a hiatus.

I've always had the wolf and i will go back to it shortly. But a conversation with Riesa led to where she thought i needed an avy change. The coach is not homosexual as you'll shortly see, but I thought the same at first too when he was watching him dress. That was weird.

[Psycheinaboat]

I fear I am cursed to never completely finish an Updike book. His stories always sound interesting, but I never quite make it through. This is odd for me because I always finish the books I begin unless I decide they are absolutely a waste of time without redemption. Updike’s books do not seem like a waste, but I just can’t get through them. First I failed to finish A Month of Sundays and now Rabbit, Run.

[jlb4tlb]

I find it odd that only myself have rated this months book and we are 4 days into Oct. Does this happen often?

[Virgil]

I fear I am cursed to never completely finish an Updike book. His stories always sound interesting, but I never quite make it through. This is odd for me because I always finish the books I begin unless I decide they are absolutely a waste of time without redemption. Updike’s books do not seem like a waste, but I just can’t get through them. First I failed to finish A Month of Sundays and now Rabbit, Run.
Oh take your time. You don't have to finish in a month. I haven't yet.


I find it odd that only myself have rated this months book and we are 4 days into Oct. Does this happen often?
Jib, I will vote when I finish. I will in the next week or so. I have been very busy.

[Scheherazade]

I am really struggling with this one; seems like Updike has found the cure for insomnia!

[CdnReader]

Been swamped with so many things. My copy is on its way from Amazon now. Will try to get to it before the month is over. :D

[applepie]

I find it odd that only myself have rated this months book and we are 4 days into Oct. Does this happen often?

I've not had time to finish and it may be a couple more weeks. I'm enjoying it, but fitting the time to read into my days has not been easy lately. The baby has chicken pox now, so it will be a bit before I really have the time to finish:( I'll be skipping October reading because of time constraints, I think. It may change between now and the end of the month, but you never know. I hope to make it back for November.

[Virgil]

I am really struggling with this one; seems like Updike has found the cure for insomnia!

I will say that Updike's style ranges from dull to incredibly precise. It's like he's trying to reach for poetic diction in every sentence. Sometimes he hits it and sometimes it comes across exaggerated. The term I should reaaly use is not exaggerated but mannered. I understand this was Upidike's first novel, so I guess he had some learning to do. But I think one can see the potential talent that was there.

[Virgil]

Well, I finally finished. I think it was a good novel, though not great. I actually found the character of Harry Angstrom ("Rabbit") to be quite fascinating. He moves through huge swings, going from responsible to frustrated to irresponsible to contrite and return to responsibllity and then starts the cycle once again. I think he goes through the cycle three times. He is not a fixed entity but constantly evolving. Of course he deserves a good smack across the head and one wants to tell him, "straighten up you jerk." But he is engaging, a charmer, at once stuck in his past glories of his school basketball achievements, but chameleon enough to evolve to a fluid situation.

My first thoughts on the novel were that this seems to be the flip side of Jack Kerouac's On The Road. Where Kerouac glorifies impulsive escape from responsibilities, Updike seems to be presenting the ramifications (broken marriage, impact on children) to impulsive self-centeredness. To my surprise i actually came across an Updike introduction that claims essentially that his novel was inspired in contradistinction to On The Road. From that introduction, Updike writes:

Jack Kerouac's On The Road came out in 1957 and, without reading it, I resented its apparent instruction to cut loose; Rabbit, Run was meant to be a realistic demonstration of what happens when a young American family man goes on the road--the people left behind get hurt. There was no painless dropping out of the Fifties' fraying but still tight social weave. Arriving at so prim a moral was surely not my only intention: the book ends on an escatic, open notethat was meant to stay open, as testimony to our heart's stubborn amoral quest for something once called grace.

What really captured me was the theme (whether Updike sees it this way I'm not sure, but I think it fits) that post WWII men have this tendency to refuse to grow up and be adults. I have mentioned this perspectve of mine on several threads here, and I think this book was actually ahead of its time. We in America would see this phenomena come to fruition in the 1960s and then spread across the whole culture after that. It now seems to not just be an American phenomena, but across the whole world. Anyway, so much for pontificating.

The book was well written in spots, but I will say sometimes Updike's mannered style was annoying and stiff. This was supposed to be one of his first novels, and I hope he honed his writing to avoid his pitfalls. There three more Rabbit novels that subsesquently follwed this, one for each decade after. Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), Rabbit At Rest (1990), and even fifth, a novella, Rabbit Remembered (2001). I'm curious how Harry evolves through the decades to the evolving American cultural scene.

I'll post some well written, deserving passages of note later.

[applepie]

I'm still finishing Virgil, but I'll comment soon. I'm going to try and finish in the next day or two. I should have the time now.

[applepie]

I finally finished Rabbit, Run. I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised. It took me a bit to get into the book, but once I was about a third of the way in I became hooked. Updike's writing is really enjoyable at some points, but I must admit that his style is a little dry for most of the book. It seemed odd to me that parts could seem so well written, but then others were not enjoyable at all. The characters are unlikable, and I'll admit to feeling no pity for Rabbit. I'm not sure if we were supposed to pity him at all, but the people who pulled on my heart strings were the women. I think that my favorite scene as for content and writing, is the one where Janice accidentally kills little Rebecca.

She drops gently to her knees by the big calm tub and does not expect her sleeves to be soaked. The water wraps around her forearms like two large hands; under her eyes the pink baby sinks down like a gray stone.

With a sob of protest she grapples for the child but the water pushes up at her hands, her bathrobe tends to gloat, and the slippery thing squirms in the sudden opacity. She has a hold, feels a hearbeat on her thumb, and then loses it, and the skin of the water leaps with pale refracted oblongs that she can't seize the solid of; it is only a moment, but a moment dragged out in a thicker time. Then she has Becky squeezed in her hands and it is all right.

She lifts the living thing into the air and hugs it against her sopping chest. Water pours off them onto the bathroom tiles. The little weightless body flops against her neck and a quick look of relief at the baby's face gives a fantastic clotted impression. A contorted memory of how they give artificial respiration pumps Janice's cold wet arms in frantic rhythmic hugs; under her clenched lids great scarlet prayers arise, wordless, monotonous, and she seems to be clasping the knees of a vast third person whose name, Father, Father, beats against her head like physical blows. Though her wild heart bathes the universe in red, no spark kindles in the space between her arms; for all of her pouring prayers she doesn't feel the faintest tremor of an answer in the darkness against her. Her sense of the third person with them widens enormously, and she knows, knows, while knocks sound at the door, that the worst thing that has ever happened to any woman in the world has happened to her.

The writing for this scene is really amazing, and the pity that I had pouring out by the end of it was amazing to me. Up until this point I had very little pity for Janice, but this scene drew it from me. Regardless of the fact that she was drunk, I pitied her for the reason she had been drinking and the price that she paid.

The character of Harry was somewhat of a mystery to me. I was not able to really find any understanding for his behavior. He was entirely selfish and self-serving through the book, and he paid with his family and his children. He was one of the only characters who seemed to be unhurt through the book, but he was the main reason for everyone else's pain and sorrow. I don't know about everyone else, but the book seemed to be a warning against being consumed with your own wants and desires. There was no care in Harry for the feelings of those around him. All that seemed to drive him was a consuming desire to fulfill his every whim no matter what price others had to pay for it.

[Virgil]

I promised to post a sample passage from the novel. I like to do this with every novel so that (1) everyone can get a feel for the novelist's style and (2) it gives me a chance to hand write a passage and absorb that style better.

I didn't particulaly highlight the well written passages as I read (I usually do that) so I had to randomly find one. As it turned out the passage i selected not only gives a feel for Updike' style but I think it also highlights the novel's central theme. I chose this passage when Rabbit after coming back to his wife stops at his mother's house.


It is quite different at his parent’s home. He and Nelson go there once. His mother is angry about something; her anger hits his nostrils as soon as he’s in the door, like the smell of age on everything. This house looks shabby and small after the Springers’. What ails her? He assumes she’s always been on his side and tells her in a quick gust of confiding how terrific the Springers have been, how Mrs. Springer is really quite warmhearted and seems to have forgiven him everything, how Mr. Springer kept up the rent on their apartment and now has promised him a job selling cars in one of his lots. He owns four lots in Brewer and vicinity; Rabbit had no idea he was that much of an operator. He’s really kind of a jerk but a successful jerk at least; at any rate he thinks he, Harry Angstrom, has got off pretty easily. His mother’s hard arched nose and steamed spectacles glitter bitterly. Her disapproval nicks him whenever she turns from the sink. At first he thinks it’s that he never got in touch with her but if that’s so she should be getting less sore instead of more because he’s in touch with her now. Then he thinks it’s that she’s disgusted he slept with Ruth, and committed adultery, but out of a clear sky she explodes that by asking him abrubtly, “And what’s going to happen to this poor girl you lived with in Brewer?”

“Her? Oh, she can take care of herself. She didn’t expect anything.” But as he says this he tastes the lie in it. Nobody expects nothing. It makes his life seemed cramped, that Ruth can be mentioned out of his mother’s mouth.

Her mouth goes thin and she answers with a smug flirt of her head, “I’m not saying a word, Harry. I’m not saying one word.”

We can see Udike''s style in the very strong verbs he uses ("nicks" "tastes" "goes thin") and the analogies he strives for ("like the smell of age," "anger hits his nostrils," "his ife seemed cramped"). It's Updike striving for a poetic diction within the prose. I have read he started as a poet, and it shows. What I particularly like about the scene is how Updike takes us through Harry's mind and assumptions while the main action is moving on. Not only do we see his internal comments but we the erroneous presumptions on which his conclusions are built. Very nicely done, and from a technical point of view that is not so easy to do.

As to the theme, his mother's question, "And what’s going to happen to..." can be seen as the central theme, that one's actions has conseqences not just on yourself, but others around you.

[tugboat674]

Sorry, just noticed I posted in wrong area. :(